I have met my self-imposed deadline to complete Tell Me MORE About Yourself: A Workbook to Develop Better Job-Search Communication through Storytelling by today. (The plan was to offer it by the end of summer; I settled for the first day of fall.)

You can check out the table of contents here: TellMeMoreContents.pdf

I’m selling the workbook for the low, low, low, low price of $2.99 (!!!) through Google Checkout. Here’s the link.

The workbook is intended as a companion to my 2009 book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career. It is both an update and extension of that book.

In the time since Tell Me About Yourself was published, I’ve learned an enormous amount and gained many new ideas and insights (most of them reported here in this blog) about using story in job search and career from colleagues in the storytelling, career, and marketing sectors. This workbook offers a way to expand on the ideas and concepts of Tell Me About Yourself.

The workbook also provides a way for users to implement the ideas and concepts in a practical, hands-on way. Since Tell Me About Yourself was published, readers have asked such questions as:

• How do you tell a good story in the job search?
• How do you find your stories?
• How can my stories have the most impact?

Thus, this workbook is intended as the nitty-gritty how-to that goes beyond the concepts and examples in Tell Me About Yourself.

Do you need to have read Tell Me About Yourself to benefit from the workbook? I would recommend it so you understand the principles and benefits of storytelling in the job search. But you don’t necessarily have to buy a copy. A free earlier edition is online. Anytime I refer users to Tell Me About Yourself in the workbook, I give the page numbers from the print edition and the Web address of the online edition.

The workbook follows some of the content of Tell Me About Yourself closely, especially in story development, resumes, cover letters, and interviewing. I felt the content of Tell Me About Yourself was largely sufficient in explaining story concepts in areas such as networking, personal branding, portfolios, and workplace storytelling; thus, the workbook touches on them only briefly or not at all.

The workbook also adds a new content area that was not in Tell Me About Yourself at all. The entire first chapter is devoted to using story to help users determine a career path.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

This post is intended to illuminate Exercise 4.A.2 in Tell Me MORE About Yourself: A Workbook to Develop Better Job-Search Communication through Storytelling by providing examples of telling SAR/CAR/PAR stories backwards:

[Result] Ensured revenue flow that met payroll needs [Action] by initiating new distribution plan and advertiser incentives after Hurricane Katrina wiped out newspaper’s distribution channels.

[Result] Spearheaded retail chain’s most successful charity fundraising event — more money than had ever been raised by any store in the chain — [Action]by challenging staff to develop high-profile idea to help the community [Situation]after corporate office criticized store’s weak response to company commitment to giving back.

[Result] Cut turnover in half [Action]by conducting aggressive research, designing a system to track projects, and implementing leadership program to challenge workers [Situation]after lack of company growth resulted in huge turnover problem in technical staff.

[Result] Cut receiving time from two or three days to less than six hours from the time the truck hit the dock [Action] by completely overhauling stockroom organization [Situation] when holiday season resulted in double shipments and demanded a new process.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

The most recent serialization of Tell Me About Yourself is now complete.

You can read the new, improved edition of Tell Me About Yourself by buying the book.

You can read the first edition of Tell Me About Yourself on this blog, as follows (Follow each chapter sequentially through the dates after the opening entries for each chapter):

Introduction: Why Use Story in the Job Search?

CHAPTER 1: Telling Stories about Change

CHAPTER 2: The Quintessential You Story

CHAPTER 3: How to Develop Career-Propelling Stories

CHAPTER 4: Networking as Storytelling

CHAPTER 5: Resumes that Tell a Story

CHAPTER 6: Cover Letters That Tell a Story

CHAPTER 7: Portfolios that Tell a Story

CHAPTER 8: Interviews That Tell a Story

CHAPTER 9: Personal Branding as Storytelling

CHAPTER 10: Propel Your Career Through On-the-Job Storytelling

Epilogue

OR

You can read the first edition, page by page, here.

OR

You can read it through the Facebook fan page for the book.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

By the end of this summer, I will publish a workbook companion to my book Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career. I plan to self-publish the volume and charge a nominal fee, tentatively $2.99.

In the time since Tell Me About Yourself came out in 2009, I’ve collected so much material I wish I had known to include or that I’d love to include in a new edition. The book has sold respectably, but I suspect not well enough for the publisher to be interested in a new edition.

And beyond new material, I want to specifically create a workbook that will help folks develop communication skills — through story — that they can apply to job search, career development, and the workplace. My plan is to fill the workbook with hands-on exercises.

I envision that business-communication and career-development teachers will find the workbook useful with their students, and coaches with their clients. Individuals, of course, will also benefit.

Anyone who read Tell Me About Yourself and wants to delve deeper into applying story to the job search, as well as gain more how-to interactive experience, should get a lot out of the workbook, but folks will not have needed to read Tell Me About Yourself to use the workbook.

Please email me if you’d like to be notified of the availability of Tell Me MORE About Yourself: A Workbook to Develop Better Job-Search Communication through Storytelling.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

Rachel Brozenske of coaching firm Allison Partners recently reviewed Tell Me About Yourself.

Here’s an excerpt:

Whether or not your next interview begins when someone asks you these famous words, you’ll be well-served by Hansen’s approach to storytelling and the abundant examples she provides demonstrating how stories can help you with networking requests, resumes, cover letters, interviews, performance reviews, and more. Less a book for reading cover-to-cover and more a resource to work your way through, this guide explains why stories unlock doors and shows how to convert a list of experience and accomplishments into compelling narratives. It takes some effort, but I’ve seen this approach work for many, many clients.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

My new friend, Tim Tyrell-Smith of Tim’s Strategy has posted a review of Tell Me About Yourself and will gave away copies to selected commenters. Here’s an excerpt:

Kathy has an awesome book on storytelling called “Tell Me about Yourself: Storytelling To Get Jobs And Propel Your Career”. So I’ll tell you about Kathy’s book. Then I’ll tell you how you can win one of three copies she gave me. … If you are someone who freezes or cringes when asked a big, open-ended question like “tell me about yourself”, this book will be like a warm bath on a cold winter’s night. Kathy’s writing style is very comfortable. As you might guess from a storyteller. … Kathy’s book also provides many great samples to help you turn your experiences into engaging stories.

So if you’d like a chance to win a copy of Kathy’s book, here’s how to enter to win: leave a comment on this post. How? Share a story that you like to tell or a success in using a story to find a job or propel your career. You can also ask a question and I’ll see if I can get Kathy to answer a few.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

I don’t know how this recording sounds because I can’t bear listening to myself, but you might like to listen to this interview I did with Nan Russell of Work Matters on storytelling in the job search.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

Hansen, Katharine (2009)
Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career
Indianapolis, IN: JIST Works
ISBN: 978-1-59357-6707
http://astoriedcareer.com/

Book Review by Nancy J. Miller

The title of this book caught my attention because the response to the question, “Tell me about yourself” is what employers want to know whether or not they ask the specific question. The employer wants to know who you are and what you add to their business. The author’s use of story telling as the basis of understanding the question behind the question is very perceptive. When asked to tell about yourself, or tell your story, you need to know exactly what stories to tell and how to tell them.

Story telling is an art that needs to be practiced to be effective. The author uses examples, case stories, and job search tools to present various methods for practicing story telling. By writing your story before you walk into an interview or evaluation, you will know what experiences inspired you and which ones left you less than happy. You can avoid discussing less than positive events and focus on stories that make you shine. The author clearly explains the need to write and understand your stories before the interview to build confidence, clarify important themes, and highlight your strengths. The book includes a wealth of information and resources for developing a resume, cover letter, interview strategies, and propelling your career.

Five things I learned:

1. Your story makes you unique and gives the interviewer something to like about you.
2. Storytelling builds trust because it provides an emotional investment and uses the right brain.
3. Telling a story to demonstrate a skill or experience may not work for every type of interview, but it always helps to write out your story and practice saying it out loud.
4. If you don’t have a good story for the job you are applying for, then it may not be the best fit for you.
5. Stories provide a picture of the information and form the basis of how we think, organize, and remember what was said.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to enhance their career, transition to a new career, develop effective job search skills, or assist clients in developing career management strategies.

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Nancy J. Miller is a Credentialed Career Manager and LifeWork Coach with a Master’s degree in Career Counseling. For the past 10 years Nancy has been working with businesses, professionals, people in crisis and transition as well as students giving workshops, counseling, and coaching. She developed the “LifeWork Success Plan™” and “Color Your Style™” presentations to facilitate self-awareness, healthy lifestyle and career planning. Nancy is the director and founder of The Center for LifeWork Design. She can be reached at clwd@njmiller.info.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

The current serialization of Tell Me About Yourself is almost complete. Just discovered these reviews on Amazon and thought I would share them:

Review by Steve Krizman for Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

In her book, Tell Me About Yourself, Katharine Hansen provides actionable advice for incorporating storytelling in cover letters, resumes, job interviews, and conversations with the boss. As someone who is on the hiring end of the equation, I can vouch for the effectiveness of strategic storytelling (see my posts, What I look for in resumes and What I look for in cover letters).

Katharine, who writes my favorite blog on applied storytelling, interviewed job-seekers and studied reams of resumes while earning her doctorate. She supplies step-by-step story construction tips and illustrates her points with actual resumes and cover letters gathered in her research.

She clearly did an exhaustive literature search to gather a wide range of expert opinion on the subject. My only criticism is that Katharine could have synthesized the academic literature a bit more and taken a few risks by providing her own opinion.

Katharine puts the issue well for all of us, whether we are in the job market or are building our careers where we are: We should carefully nurture our own personal brand. And we know the best brands are those that evoke intrigue and emotion through the story that they tell.

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Review by Miriam Salpeter for Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

“So, tell me about yourself?”

Is that not the most obvious interview question? The one that every job-seeker should anticipate and prepare to answer? Unfortunately, it may seem so obvious, many don’t spend the time they should focusing on how to answer it.

In fact, most aspects of the job search rely on being able to tell your own story:

Networking (the all important elevator pitch)

Your resume — connecting your accomplishments with the employer’s needs

Cover letter — another opportunity to sell your skills to a targeted employer

Portfolios — online opportunities to connect with people

Interviews — sealing the deal

On the job — to connect and advance

I highly recommend that job seekers take a look at Katharine Hansen’s … book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career.

Her book is organized into several sections:

Part I — Career-propelling story basics

Part II — Using storytelling in your job search

Part III — Continuous storytelling

Katharine explains how stories can help you get a job by demonstrating your personality, helping to make you memorable and establishing trust. People who know how to tell good stories can communicate their value proposition, which is key for job seekers and careerists.

This book helps you with every aspect of telling your story — from figuring out what the story should be through tips for how to recall stories stored in your brain! (For example, give your stories names.) It is full of samples of stories and many, many ideas that are critically useful for job seekers and all professionals.

If you’re engaged in a job search — or maybe you should be — don’t miss this great resource!

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Review by Tax Writer for Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

This book was surprisingly fun to read, mainly because it’s full of true employee stories, which are always interesting. I think the book would have been more appropriately titled if it had something — anything — in the title about interviewing. Really, this book is about how to interview successfully and make yourself really memorable.

The book also has numerous examples of successful resumes, cover letters, bios, and other correspondence to help “sell” yourself to a prospective employer.

Here’s my take:

1. The book is an excellent book on interviewing, and also how prospective employees should present/introduce themselves to employers
2. The book is more suited to people who are trying to obtain a management, supervisory, or white-collar job. The author already assumes that you know the basics, (like, don’t show up in jeans and flip-flops). She assumes that you have some skills and education, so this isn’t a book for someone trying to get a job waiting tables. It’s geared towards working professionals.
3. The book’s best points are the cover letter tips and examples, as well as the story examples, of which there are many. She also goes over how to handle a termination with dignity so you don’t burn any bridges.

Overall, I think this is an excellent guide, especially for the price, which is quite reasonable for the material provided and the page count. I felt that the title was a poor choice, and maybe even a little misleading, but I don’t feel that’s enough of a reason to give this book less than 5 stars, considering the quality of the material.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.

These days, it’s not easy for the jobless to stand out from one another. Even those lucky enough to land interviews have a tough time making themselves memorable to hiring managers. That’s why some individuals have turned to extreme job-hunting tactics.

From wearing sandwich boards that announce their job objective to sending singing telegrams into target companies, job seekers are getting pretty creative in their pursuit of jobs. And while these strategies certainly get job seekers noticed, they haven’t won the support of many career experts. Katharine Hansen, author of Tell Me About Yourself (today’s the first anniversary of its release), believes there are better ways to make a positive, lasting impression in the job hunt.

“Extreme job-hunting is risky because it smacks of desperation,” Hansen says. “While employers in this economy can understand the desperation, many simply won’t respond favorably to extreme tactics, thus ultimately rendering them less effective.”

Instead, she encourages the job seekers she counsels to stand out through storytelling. “Rather than deploying far-out approaches, job-seekers can turn to a technique almost as old as human history—storytelling. Most job-seekers know they can use stories to respond to interview questions, but they don’t realize they can also apply stories in resumes, cover letters, portfolios and in networking to make themselves memorable and create vivid pictures of their skills and accomplishments.”

According to Hansen, an engaging, articulate story about an actual experience can do a handful of things a sandwich board or singing telegram cannot, including:

• Establish your identity
• Reveal your personality
• Boost your confidence
• Make you memorable
• Establish trust
• Illustrate your potential
• Provide explanations
• Reveal your response to change
• Demonstrate your communication skills

“Consider that many job seekers vying for the same position you seek probably have qualifications that are similar to yours. But will they be describing those qualifications to employers in evocative story form? Probably not. If you do, you’ll distinguish yourself from those who seek to sell themselves to employers in less engaging ways,” notes Hansen.

Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). The author, Katharine Hansen, is immediately available for print, broadcast and online interviews. To speak with her, contact Selena Dehne.

JIST Publishing is the leading publisher of job search, career, and occupational information materials. As America’s Career Publisher, JIST has helped millions of people focus their education and career goals to achieve success in the world of work and beyond. JIST’s authors are the nation’s leading experts in the fields of job search and career information.

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Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.